Of this long and hazardous journey, the columns of the Herald gave all the principal details. There is nothing in them that illustrates the peculiar characteristics of Stanley more than, or even so much as, his subsequent acts, hence his brief summary of this tour, that seems to have had no definite object whatever, except to give the correspondent of the Herald something to do, until the proper moment to start on the expedition for Livingstone, is, perhaps, the best account that could be given, so far as the general reader is concerned. All we can say is, it seems a very roundabout way in which to commence such an expedition.
"I went up the Nile and saw Mr. Higginbotham, chief engineer in Baker's expedition, at Philæ, and was the means of preventing a duel between him and a mad young Frenchman, who wanted to fight Mr. Higginbotham with pistols, because Mr. Higginbotham resented the idea of being taken for an Egyptian through wearing a fez cap. I had a talk with Captain Warren at Jerusalem, and descended one of the pits with a sergeant of engineers to see the marks of Tyrian workmen on the foundation-stones of the Temple of Solomon. I visited the mosques of Stamboul with the minister resident of the United States, and the American consul-general. I traveled over the Crimean battle-grounds with Kinglake's glorious books for reference. I dined with the widow of General Liprandi, at Odessa. I saw the Arabian traveler, Palgrave, at Trebizond, and Baron Nicolay, the civil governor of the Caucasus, at Tiflis. I lived with the Russian embassador while at Teheran, and wherever I went through Persia I received the most hospitable welcome from the gentlemen of the Indo-European Telegraph Company; and, following the example of many illustrious men, I wrote my name upon one of the Persepolitan monuments. In the month of August, 1870, I arrived in India."
In completing this sketch of Mr. Stanley's life and character, it is necessary only to add that his after career fully justified the high estimate Mr. Bennett had placed on his extraordinary qualities. These were tested to their utmost extent in his persistent, determined search after the man he was sent to find. But we believe that Livingstone, when found, with whom Stanley passed some months, exerted a powerful influence on the character which we have attempted to portray. Stanley was comparatively young, full of life and ambition, with fame, greater probably than he had ever anticipated, now within his reach. Yet, here in the heart of Africa, he found a man well on in years, of a world-wide fame, yet apparently indifferent to it.
This man who had spent his life in a savage country, away from home and all the pleasures of civilized society, who expected to pass the remnant of his days in the same isolated state, was looking beyond this life. He was forgetting himself, in the absorbing purpose to benefit others. Fame to him was nothing, the welfare of a benighted race everything. This was a new revelation to the ambitious young man. Hitherto he had thought only of himself, but here was a man, earnest, thoughtful, sincere, who was living to carry out a great idea—no less than the salvation of a continent—nay more than this, who was working not for himself, but for a Master, and that Master, the God of the universe. He remained with him in close companionship for months, and intimate relations with a man borne up by such a lofty purpose, inspired by such noble feelings, and looking so far away beyond time for his reward, could not but have an important influence on a man with Stanley's noble and heroic qualities. It was a new revelation to him. He had met, not a successful, bold explorer, but a Christian, impelled and sustained by the great and noble idea of regenerating a race and honoring the God of man and the earth. Such a lengthened companionship with a man of this character could but lift Stanley to a higher plane, and inspire him with a loftier purpose than that of a mere explorer.
But while this expedition brought out all the peculiar traits we have spoken of, yet his later expedition developed qualities which circumstances had not previously shown. When from this he emerged on the Atlantic coast with his company, he was hailed with acclamations and a British vessel was placed at his disposal in which to return home. But the ease and comfort offered him, and the applause awaiting him, were nothing compared with the comfort and welfare of the savage band that had for so long a time been his companions and his only reliance in the perils through which he had passed. True, they had often been intractable, disobedient and trustless, but still they had been his companions in one of the most perilous marches ever attempted by man, and with that large charity that allowed for the conduct of these untutored, selfish animals of the desert, he forgot it all and would do nothing, think of nothing, till their wants were supplied and their welfare secured. He would see them safe back to the spot from which he took them, and did, before he took care of himself. A noble nature there asserted itself, and we doubt not that every one of those poor ignorant savages would go to the death for that brave man to whom their own welfare was so dear.
In this sketch of Mr. Stanley, as it appears to us from the record of his life, we have omitted to notice those faults which are incident to poor human nature, in whatever person it is enshrined. But perhaps this is as good a place as any to notice the charge brought against him by some persons in the English press, of having killed natives, not in self-defense but to carry out his explorations; they asserting that neither for fame nor science, nor for any other motive, had a man a right to take the life of his fellow-man. Without going into an argument on this point, or bringing forward the circumstances of this particular case, leaving that to be explained in the narrative, as it will appear in subsequent pages, we wish simply to say that the philanthropy and Christianity, in behalf of which the charge is made, is pure Pharisaism. Those writers asserted that life should be taken only in self-defense. But in their eyes it is right, from mere covetousness to seize territory in India, and thus provoke the rightful owners to rise in defense of their own, which act converts them into assailants that must be killed in self-defense.
But this man having passed through friendly territory, suddenly finds himself stopped by hostile savages, who declare that he must retrace his three months' journey and turn back, not because they are to be despoiled of their land, or wronged in their persons, but from mere savage maliciousness and hate. Mr. Stanley quietly insists on continuing his journey, desiring no conflict, but finding them determined to kill him and break up his expedition, he anticipates their movements and shoots down some of them, and lo, these writers who defend the slaughter of tens of thousands of men in India, so that England may enjoy her wholesale robbery, nay, who threaten Europe with bloody war at the mere hint that others may want to share her unjust possessions—these writers call on the English people to refuse to give Stanley a public reception, because he killed a half-dozen savages who wanted to kill him. He should have waited, they say, till they fired the first shot; as he did not his conduct should be investigated by the philanthropic subjects of Her Majesty the Queen.